The present invention relates to fluid flow measurement. More particularly, the invention relates to a low-cost volumetric flow meter for volume measurements that can easily be mounted and used on a faucet.
A common household item is the measurement set, which are normally plastic containers of various sizes, having capacity for predefined set of volumes such as 5 ml, 15 ml, 50 ml, and 100 ml for example. Measuring a given volume with a measuring set is often a cumbersome procedure involving many steps. For example measuring 165 ml requires several refills with different containers. Moreover using any separate container for measurement purposes requires at least one hand to be free for the task, and many times both hands if water is not to be left running. Also sometimes water contamination of dry and clean containers is undesirable if other substances or foodstuffs are also to be measured at the same time.
Many cookware items have markings to show the user how much fluid is contained in them. These markings are often hard to read and the reading can be very inexact due to the resolution of the scale, the meniscus, and the cookware not being held perfectly flat with respect to the ground. Further, water cannot be added too quickly because waves and bubbles are easily formed in the cookware that can make it very hard to read off a correct value.
There exist several technologies for measuring fluid flow in general and many different types of flow meters are readily available on the open market. However, these flow meters have a number of disadvantages. Many times they are costly, bulky, require electric power or batteries, may require manual handling, and may require a professional to be installed. They cannot be readily mounted to and used on the outlet of a faucet and are often of industrial grade, and thus not designed for operation in for example a kitchen consumer environment.
In certain critical environments where hygiene is of importance, and the cost to benefit ratio of improving the hygiene needs to be carefully considered, the prior art offers few if any practicable solutions in the field of the present invention.
It is of value that technologies of conserving water and solutions that promote sensible water consumption are available at low cost and are easy to use. Simply notifying a faucet user of the consumed water amounts can significantly reduce water consumption over time. Thus, there exists a need for a device such as the one disclosed by the present invention.